Jonathan Owens has been working on documenting Glavda (Central Chadic) over the past 2 years, under an ELDP grant. He is now in the process of putting up the results at a website (link) :
- transcribed and morphologically segmented texts
- complete free translations of each
- about 20% of 10 texts with interlinear glosses
- accompanying audio files for each text
The texts are based on interviews conducted by consultants, mostly in the Ngoshe area, a few from Maiduguri. A certain degree of demographic and geographical diversity is represented in the sample, young (under 30) and old (over 50), men and women, three villages (Ngoshe, Agapalawa, Arboko).
Topics are broad: history, daily life, farming, cooking, current politics, the future of Glavda, teasing and bantering (often the interviewer knew the interviewee well), so that the texts have more than a linguistic interest, even if that is their primary focus.
Thus far 11 texts are available, the goal being 16 or 17. The entire corpus should be about 90,000 words.
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